I Recommend Death Threats

… to stay prolific.

Oodles of folks have an idea for a book/movie/porno that’ll never get written. I won’t waste anyone’s time with the platitudes about commitment to the blank page; we know. I can speak to the manner in which I convince myself to get up every morning and confront words.

Fucking death threats.

Straight from my brain to my gut and on down to my crotch. Threats all the more potent because I remember both my suicide attempts. Both of them.

I’m in no immediate danger, not from my own actions. Inaction’s the only threat. When I turned thirty it dawned on me that I still didn’t possess a single significant publishing credit. That terrified me. So every day I wake up in a blind panic that I’ll die without getting something noteworthy out into the world.

Not for the faint of heart, waking up every day with your life at stake. My girlfriend gets it worse than I do. She’s usually dead asleep or wide awake when I sit up in bed like someone’s doused the electric blanket in battery acid. Does wonders for her heart, and I don’t mean sentiment; if I gave her a heart attack in our dwindling years because I slept ten minutes later than I’d scheduled for editing… Wouldn’t surprise me.

Anyway. I’ve spent too long blogging. Getting that itch between my shoulder blades that says any second now I’ll squander my entire life. Gotta draft the Shroud’s take on Smokey on the Bandit. Until next time, I’ll haunt your thoughts and dreams!